Rebuilding American Manufacturing Event
The decades-old dictum of “innovate here, produce there” has stymied our nation’s technological progress and prowess. As Japan, Germany, Korea, Taiwan, and China have realized the benefits of “manufacturing-led” innovation systems, our nation, without innovative methods to produce newly developed technology, has failed to reap the benefits from our investments in R&D.
Our roundtable of senior leadership at the White House National Economic Council and U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services as well as a diversity of viewpoints across political ideologies from Breakthrough Energy, American Compass, MIT’s The Engine, and Employ America discussed competing with China on advanced manufacturing sectors (bioeconomic, semiconductor, quantum, etc.), supply chain resilience, and new visions for industrial policy that can stimulate regional development.
The real opportunity of AI lies not just in the tools, but in an educator workforce prepared to wield them. When done right, this investment in human infrastructure ensures AI accelerates learning outcomes for all students, closing the “digital design divide.”
Good information sources, like collections, must be available and maintained if companies are going to successfully implement the vision of AI for science expressed by their marketing and executives.
Nestled in the cuts and investments of interest to the S&T community is a more complex story of how the administration is approaching the practice of science diplomacy.
By structuring licensing-and-talent deals that replicate mergers while avoiding antitrust scrutiny, dominant technology firms are reshaping AI labor markets, venture financing, and the future of U.S. innovation.